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| A FIELD HOSPITAL. |
Some of the most interesting incidents of the battle are given by Col. Douglas Putnam, Jr., of the Ninety-second Ohio Infantry, in a paper read before the Ohio Commandery of the Loyal Legion: "With the consent of General Grant, I was permitted to accompany him to the field as a volunteer aid. As we approached Crump's Landing, where the division of Gen. Lew Wallace was stationed, the boat was rounded in and the engines stopped. General Wallace, then standing on the bank, said, 'My division is in line, waiting for orders.' Grant's reply was, that as soon as he got to Pittsburg Landing and learned where the attack was, he would send him orders. … After getting a horse, I started with Rawlins to find General Grant; and to my inquiry as to where we would likely find him, Rawlins's reply, characteristic of the man, was, 'We'll find him where the firing is heaviest.' As we proceeded, we met the increasing signs of battle, while the dropping of the bullets about us, on the leaves, led me in my inexperience to ask if it were not raining, to which Rawlins tersely said, 'Those are bullets, Douglas.' When, on meeting a horse through which a cannon-ball had gone, walking along with protruding bowels, I asked permission to shoot him and end his misery, Rawlins said, 'He belongs to the quartermaster's department; better let them attend to it.' We soon found General Grant. He was sending his aids in different directions, as occasion made it necessary, and he himself visited his division commanders one by one. He wore his full uniform, with the major-general's buff sash, which made him very conspicuous both to our own men and to those of the enemy. Lieut.-Col. J. B. McPherson, acting chief of staff, remonstrated with him, as did also Rawlins, for so unnecessarily exposing himself, as he went just in the rear of our line of battle; but he said he wanted to see and know what was going on. About eleven o'clock he met General Sherman on what was called Sherman's drill-ground, near the old peach orchard. The meeting was attended with but few words. Sherman's stock had become pulled around until the part that should have been in front rested under one of his ears, while his whole appearance indicated hard and earnest work. The bullets were plenteous here. Sherman told Grant how many horses he had had killed under him, showing him also the marks of bullets in his clothing. When Grant left Sherman, I think I was the only aid with him. Riding toward the right, the General saw a body of troops coming up from the direction of Crump's Landing, and exclaimed with great delight and satisfaction, 'Now we are all right, all right—there's Wallace.' He was of course mistaken, as the troops he saw were not those he so earnestly looked for, and of whose assistance he was beginning to feel the need. About two o'clock, at one point were gathered General Grant and several of his staff. The group consisted of Grant, McPherson, Rawlins, Webster, and others. This evidently drew the attention of the enemy, and they received rather more than a due share of the fire. Colonel McPherson's horse having been shot under him, I gave him mine, and under directions went to the river on foot. The space under the bank was literally packed by thousands, I suppose, of men who had from inexperience and fright 'lost their grip,' or were both mentally and physically, as we say, let down—however, only temporarily. To them it seemed that the day was lost, that the deluge was upon them. The Tennessee River in front, swamps to the right and swamps to the left, they could go no farther, and there lay down and waited. I remember well seeing a mounted officer, carrying a United States flag, riding back and forth on top of the bank, pleading and entreating in this wise: 'Men, for God's sake, for your country's sake, for your own sake, come up here, form a line, and make one more stand.' The appeal fell on listless ears. No one seemed to respond, and the only reply I heard was some one saying, 'That man talks well, don't he?' But eighteen hours afterward these same men had come to themselves, were refreshed by meeting other troops, and assured that all was not lost, that there was something still left to fight for, and helped also by the magic touch of the elbow, they did valiant service. A group of officers was gathered around General Grant about dusk, at a smouldering fire of hay just on the top of the grade. The rain was falling, atmosphere murky, and ground covered with mud and water. Colonel McPherson rode up, and Grant said, 'Well, Mac, how is it?' He gave him a report of the condition as it seemed to him, which was, in short, that at least one-third of his army was hors de combat, and the rest much disheartened. To this the General made no reply, and McPherson continued, 'Well, General Grant, under this condition of affairs, what do you propose to do, sir? Shall I make preparations for retreat?' The reply came quick and short: 'Retreat? No! I propose to attack at daylight, and whip them.'"
The same writer tells of a conversation that he held with General Beauregard some years after the war. "To my query that it had always been a mystery why he stopped the battle when he did Sunday night, when the advantage, on the whole, seemed to be with him, and when he had an hour or more of daylight, General Beauregard replied that there were two reasons: first, his men were, as he put it, 'out of hand,' had been fighting since early morn, were worn out, and also demoralized by the flush of victory in gathering the stores and sutlers' supplies found in our camps. As one man said, 'You fellows went to war with cheese, pigs' feet, dates, pickles—things we rebs had forgotten the sight of.' 'In the second place,' he said, 'I thought I had General Grant just where I wanted him, and could finish him up in the morning.'"
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After the battle, General Halleck took command in person, and proceeded to lay siege to Corinth, to capture it by regular approaches. Both he and Beauregard were reinforced, till each had about one hundred thousand men. Halleck gradually closed in about the place, till in the night of May 29th Beauregard evacuated it, and on the morning of the 30th Sherman's soldiers entered the town.
Some military critics hold that the fate of the Confederacy was determined on the field of Shiloh. They point out the fact that after that battle there was nothing to prevent the National armies at the West from going all the way to the Gulf, or—as they ultimately did—to the sea. In homely phrase, the back door of the Confederacy was broken down, and, however stubbornly the front door in Virginia might be defended, it was only a question of time when some great army, coming in by the rear, should cut off the supplies of the troops that held Richmond, and compel their surrender. Those who are disposed to give history a romantic turn narrow it down to the death of General Johnston, declaring that in his fall the possibility of Southern independence was lost, and if he had lived the result would have been reversed. General Grant appears to dispose of their theory when he points out the fact that Johnston was killed while leading a forlorn hope, and remarks that there is no victory for anybody till the battle is ended, and the battle of Shiloh was not ended till the close of the second day. But, indeed, there is no reason why the fatal moment should not be carried back to the time when the line of defence from the mountains to the Mississippi was broken through at Mill Spring and Fort Donelson, or even to the time when the Confederates, because of Kentucky's refusal to leave the Union, were prevented from establishing their frontier at the Ohio. The reason why progress in conquering the Confederacy was more rapid at the West than at the East is not to be found so much in any difference in men as in topography. At the West, the armies moving southward followed the courses of the rivers,